FALL 2006 NEWSLETTER
GEORGIA FOI ACCESS
GEORGIA FIRST AMENDMENT FOUNDATION

Nominate now for the Charles L. Weltner Freedom of Information Award

By Tom Bennett

Decatur, Ga., Sept. 6, 2006 – Eason Jordan, then chief of newsgathering, said, "Open government and freedom of information are the lifeblood of our craft at CNN."  Thurbert Baker, Attorney General of Georgia, said, "Open government has become my mission."

Roy Barnes, who had just completed his term as governor, used the occasion to begin what will be the hallmark of his media-law career – pushing for a constitutional amendment for open government.

Norman Fletcher, Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, said, "Openness is the greatest preserve of truth and honesty."

And Johnny Isakson, U.S. senator from Georgia, said, "I hope you will always hold me to my pledge of openness."

These unqualified declarations of support for freedom of information and open government were made as these persons received the Charles L. Weltner Freedom of Information Award.  It is time now for citizens to choose who will become the sixth person in this exclusive club. It is for the Georgians who have done the most for FOI.

We exercise our own freedom of speech to jog your memory by naming, in alphabetical order within alphabetical fields of endeavor, persons the state might consider as candidates.

Georgia AGENCIES AND THE COURTS have produced Kathryn Allen, retired deputy attorney general and first to serve as chief of the Law Department’s Open Government Mediation Program; Vernon Keenan, the Georgia Bureau of Information, who reorganized it to become more responsive to media and citizen requests for records; and Jay Stephenson of Cobb County, the father of increased openness in Georgia superior courts.

The LEGISLATURE’S forgotten fathers of open government are Senators Eldridge W. Perry of Buena Vista, Robert E. Lee Culpepper of Camilla, Asa W. Mitchell Jr. of Eatonton and Robert E. Lee Slade Jr. of Hawkinsville, who sponsored the 1959 Open Records Act, and Rep. Willis J. "Dick" Richardson of Savannah.

PRINT JOURNALISM still is fortunate to have working at keyboards each day Jim Houston of the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, the named party in R.W. Page Corporation’s lawsuit that led to the Georgia courts’ definition of open records; and Jane O. Hansen of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, whose dogged pursuit of hidden child-abuse records dominated the work of FOI activism in the 1980’s and 1990’s.

The Weltner Banquet is the turning point each year at which the board of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation is able to determine whether this non-profit can operate for another year. From the moment that General James Oglethorpe arrived from England and stepped ashore until 2001, there never had been a meal in Georgia at which people for open government sat together in a room and celebrated it. In view of the way that five leaders in our state have used the occasions to rise and state their complete support for it, it appears that Georgians should have started doing this long ago, to get more leaders on the record.